About Us

Established CLF in 1999, The Charles Lafitte Foundation (CLF) supports innovative and effective ways of helping people help themselves and others around them to achieve healthy, satisfying and enriched lives.

Diverse in scope, The Charles Lafitte Foundation (CLF) supports four primary causes: education, children’s advocacy, medical research & initiatives, and the arts. The foundation is flexible in its approach, sometimes giving a one-time grant to initiate a specific project while also making annual contributions.

It looks for a solid track record of setting and meeting objectives, and an inventive approach to problem solving. Understanding the tremendous personal satisfaction derived from volunteering and giving back, CLF hosts annual events such as its golf tournament, with all donations plus a match by the foundation benefiting a single charity.

Programs

Education

Education empowers individuals to find solutions, improving not only their own life but the lives around them.

Learning, a lifelong quest, is the foundation of all knowledge and skills. Through education, we can tackle larger social issues and foster responsible citizenship. CLF helps individuals gain access to schools, from preschool through college, by issuing grants and taking an active role in exploring new approaches to education.

Ways to improve teaching results include providing computer-based and technological education, promoting leadership skills, and offering programs about the arts. In addition, opportunities for ongoing education, such as research projects and conferences, promote continuing education as a goal for people of all ages.

Within the CLF education initiatives, we support programs that:

• Aid students with learning disabilities
• Target at-risk populations and integrate all learners
• Provide equal access
• Offer quality programming using innovative methods
• Apply data-driven approaches
• Educate the whole child

Children's Advocacy

Children’s advocacy nurtures and protects the most innocent.

Bettering the lives of children is central to CLF’s purpose. Ultimately, the goal is to help children reach their fullest potential, which means sufficient education, healthcare, shelter and care.

The foundation sponsors programs that mitigate the hardship that confronts and impedes too many children. This means targeting issues like child abuse, adequate foster housing, literacy and hunger.

Improving children’s education is essential to achieving positive outcomes for children and youth of all ages. It also creates communities where children and families can thrive. After-school programs enhance and strengthen the educational experience, helping to keep children in school, gain self-esteem and thrive.

We also encourage children to be their own advocates. Check out the Charles Lafitte Foundation Kid’s Corner.

Medical Research & Initiatives

Medical research and initiatives spawn breakthroughs in our understanding of wellness and allow us to proactively counter disease and suffering.

CLF supports and encourages health research and education, leading to better healthcare, disease prevention, and healthier lives. Through education, public awareness of basic wellness issues can be illuminated and healthy lifestyles and habits encouraged. The foundation looks for efforts that stress quality of life, including disease prevention, and often focuses on specific groups with serious and neglected problems.

Through research, medical advancements are explored and tested, resulting in the therapies and treatments of tomorrow. Other medical initiatives, such as long-term patient housing and palliative care, require serious attention and solutions.

The Arts

The arts enrich minds and stimulate the human spirit.

Exposure to the arts is vital to fostering and sustaining healthy communities. With diminished civic support and declining patronage, most arts organizations are increasingly challenged. Innovation, creativity, initiative, and risk taking are intrinsic to artistic expression, inspiring audiences to dig deeper into their personal potential and freeing minds to contemplate dreams.

CLF goals for arts funding include:

• cultivating new talent
• supporting established artists
• providing educational programs that encourage children’s creativity
• furthering equal access to the arts
• establishing therapeutic arts programs

Grants

Giving is personal for the Charles Lafitte Foundation, as we reflect the values and imperatives of our founders, Jeffrey Citron and Suzanne Citron.

Every member of the foundation is involved in all of our work, including researching organizations, reviewing grant requests, determining programs, and evaluating outcomes. Every grant is carefully considered. We believe that with each grant CLF awards, we are taking one step closer to a better world.

Giving Preferences

• prefers underwriting specific projects with distinct goals, and targets grants that will have a notable impact and make a material difference
• looks for creativity, innovation and initiative
• promotes inclusiveness and diversity, and likes projects that remove barriers to full economic and/or social participation in society
• engages with its beneficiaries and requires follow-up reports and impact statements
• reviews financials carefully and prefers organizational overhead costs to account for less than 15% of annual expenses
• looks to empower organizations to achieve long term stability
• does not usually support political organizations or religious-based programs
• believes in a commonsense, business-like approach to addressing humane problems.

Digital Information Technology Program

When Alfred P. Sloan Jr. created this foundation in 1934, he envisioned it would serve as a vehicle for the creation and dissemination of scientific and economic knowledge. Few technological advances have revolutionized those activities more than the development of modern computing and the subsequent explosion in our ability to collect, manipulate, store, analyze, and transmit data. Sloan's programs in Digital Technology explore how the internet and computing technology are creating new opportunities to empower the scientific enterprise and expand the public's access to knowledge.  

Data & Computational Research

Program goal: To accelerate scientific discovery by helping researchers fully exploit the opportunities created by recent advances in our ability to collect, transmit, analyze, store, and manipulate data.

Recent advances in our ability to collect, transmit, analyze, store, and manipulate data have offered the opportunity to accelerate discovery, open new avenues for investigation, and enhance the robustness and reliability of research. At the same time, the scale and scope of the data now routinely used by researchers posed new challenges for effective data management, analysis, and reproducibility. Grants in this program sought to partner with research communities to develop tools, standards, practices, and institutions that enable the efficient management and sharing of data and code at every point in the scientific pipeline—from acquisition through analysis to archiving.

As funding under Data and Computational Research ramps down, resources will increasingly focus on the legacies of Sloan grantmaking in this area, shoring up existing projects and platforms that have received Sloan funding and setting these institutions up for continued operation after Sloan funding ceases.

Scholarly Communication

Program goal: To empower researchers by supporting the development and adoption of new resources for managing the increasingly diverse array of digital communication channels, enabling scientists to more effectively locate relevant research, network with other researchers, and disseminate their work to the scientific community and the public.

The ability for anyone to publish and access anything on the Internet has disrupted the traditional role of academic journals in directing the attention of researchers and has also opened space for new research outputs like preprints, datasets, and codebases to be valued on their own terms. In this context, important scholarly practices like review, annotation, and curation needed to be updated to reflect and take advantage of this new technological landscape. Grants in this program have aimed to support innovative discovery and review of diverse scholarly materials, and established new forms of publication connecting data, code, and analysis as first-order research outputs.

As funding ramps down in this area, any new grants under Scholarly Communication will focus on the legacies of Sloan grantmaking, shoring up existing projects and platforms that have received Sloan funding and setting these institutions up for continued operation after Sloan funding ceases.

Exploratory Grantmaking in Technology

Program goal: To identify areas at the intersection of research and technology where a strategic investment of Foundation resources might be leveraged to empower scholarship.

The Sloan Foundation continually explores the intersection of research and technology to identify emerging focus areas where recent innovation, changing contexts, or scarce funding open up potential opportunities for new programs. Exploratory grantmaking is intended to bring community needs and priorities into sharper focus and allow us to determine whether there is a clear strategy and potential impact for the Foundation in a specific area. Supported activities may include workshops and other expert convenings, early software development and prototyping, landscape analyses, development of protocols and standards, initial research on and engagement with potential user communities, and demonstration or other proof-of-concept projects.

Current areas the Foundation is exploring include:

• Open Hardware: Open and cheap hardware has the potential to revolutionize the creation and deployment of sensors and other scientific instruments, expanding access and lowering barriers to innovation in data-driven research methods. Grants in this focus area seek to explore the potential for Foundation support to have an impact on the development of best practices, data standards, and emerging new practitioner communities in open hardware.
• Trust in Algorithmic Knowledge: The complexity and opacity of AI-driven research methods has raised new questions about the degree to which their results can or should be trusted. Issues examined in this focus area include identifying and mitigating algorithmic bias, the role of training and benchmarking datasets in AI development, how Machine Learning techniques enhance or degrade rigor and reproducibility, and the ways that algorithmic recommendation systems influence trust in knowledge. Grants focus on exploring these issues with an eye toward understanding the potential for Foundation impact.
• Virtual Collaboration: Health, safety, and travel restrictions imposed in response to the global coronavirus pandemic made co-located scientific activities impossible. From conferences to classrooms to lab work, research communities responded by using new approaches and technology platforms to continue the practice of science. Grants in this focus area explore these innovations, their effects on research outcomes, and their post-pandemic durability, and encourage continued experimentation by research communities in how scientific practice might be effectively mediated by digital platforms and immersive technologies.

NOTE: The Intel Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals or requests. However, organizations based in the United States may share information about programs that align with the Foundation's strategic focus areas.

Our Priorities

Promoting Stem Education

We believe in the power of knowledge and technology to transform lives and enable people to solve problems with purpose.

Opportunity for All

A strong foundation in math, technology, science, and computer engineering can empower young people with skills and confidence to launch a life of learning, career success, and contributions to society. We are targeting our work on STEM education to advance gender and racial equity, with a commitment to expand technology access to fuel human potential in every community.

Intel® She Will Connect

The Intel® She Will Connect initiative connects middle school girls to hands-on technology experiences that inspire them to become innovators and encourage their interests in technology, engineering, and computer science. Through new partnerships and collaborations, we are expanding the program across the U.S. and into other countries.

WiSci STEAM Camps

Women in Science (WiSci) Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) camps—developed through a partnership between Intel, the U.S. Department of State, and the United Nations Girl Up campaign—aim to bridge inequity gaps in technology. The Intel Foundation supports the camps, where Intel volunteers use Intel Future Skills curriculum and enable girls around the world to experience robotics, drones, coding, AI, leadership training, mentorship, and friendship.

Responding to Humanitarian Crises and Natural Disasters

We form strong partnerships and take collective action to support social justice, respond to humanitarian crises, and provide disaster relief.

Making It Count

We match employees’ donations to support communities when crises occur, and provide options for employees to make their donations count where and when they are needed most. Our goal is to achieve specific outcomes and long-term impact. 

Battling COVID-19

The Intel Foundation donated $4 million toward COVID-19 relief programs focused on education, health, community development, and economic support. In addition, the Foundation matched $2 million donated by Intel employees, who also generously contributed their time and energy to serve communities throughout the pandemic.

Taking A Stand For Racial Justice

To help address social injustice and promote anti-racism, the Intel Foundation initiated “Standing on the Sidelines Is Not an Option,” a $500,000 employee donation match campaign supporting the National Urban League, the Center for Policing Equity, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Amnesty International.

Rebuilding After Disasters

Through spotlight donation campaigns, the Foundation provides relief and matches employee contributions to help rebuild communities hit by floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, or other natural disasters. In 2020, for example, employees and the Foundation provided an outpouring of support for communities hit by wildfires across the Western U.S.

Amplifying Employee Generosity

The Intel Foundation amplifies the impact of employees’ contributions to communities around the world.

Uplifting Communities

Our employees generously donate their skills, technology expertise, funds, and millions of hours of service to tackle environmental challenges, improve education, and help uplift people. Through grants and matching programs, the Intel Foundation ignites and fosters employees’ passion for philanthropy and desire to help solve global challenges.

Donation Matching

The Foundation matches charitable donations of US Intel employees and retirees to eligible nonprofit organizations or schools, up to $10,000 annually per employee. This program helps communities rise while increasing employees’ ability to support the causes they care about most.  

Volunteer Matching

We extend the impact of volunteerism by donating $10 per volunteer hour to qualified nonprofits and schools where Intel employees and retirees donate at least 20 hours of service in a year. This program helps to recognize employees and give them an opportunity to earn money for organizations that are meaningful to them.

Seed Grants

The Intel Foundation awards seed grants of up to $5,000 to support employee-initiated community service projects. Projects are selected based on their originality, potential impact, and expected outcomes.

Volunteer Heroes

Each year, 10 Intel super volunteers each receive a $2,500 grant for the charitable organization or school of their choice. One overall winner, chosen from among these 10 finalists, receives an additional $7,500 grant for his or her designated organization.

NOTE: Submission deadlines vary by program. RCN proposals should be submitted to a particular program according to the program's submission dates; PIs should consult program websites and contact cognizant program officers for guidance.

The goal of the RCN program is to advance a field or create new directions in research or education by supporting groups of investigators to communicate and coordinate their research, training and educational activities across disciplinary, organizational, geographic and international boundaries. The RCN program provides opportunities to foster new collaborations, including international partnerships, and address interdisciplinary topics. Innovative ideas for implementing novel networking strategies, collaborative technologies, training, broadening participation, and development of community standards for data and meta-data are especially encouraged. RCN awards are not meant to support existing networks; nor are they meant to support the activities of established collaborations. RCN awards also do not support primary research. Rather, the RCN program supports the means by which investigators can share information and ideas, coordinate ongoing or planned research activities, foster synthesis and new collaborations, develop community standards, and in other ways advance science and education through communication and sharing of ideas.

Proposed networking activities directed to the RCN program should focus on a theme to give coherence to the collaboration, such as a broad research question or particular technologies or approaches. Participating programs in the Directorates for Biological Sciences (BIO), Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Geosciences (GEO), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG) and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) will accept RCN proposals. PIs are encouraged (for CISE required) to discuss suitability of an RCN topic with a program officer that manages the appropriate program. Several other NSF solicitations accept RCN proposals, or support research networking activities if appropriate to the solicitation.

NOTE: Each round of funding has a different focus selected from the areas outlined below.

• August deadline award round focus: Mental Health.
• November deadline award round focus: Low-Cost Assistive Technology

AI for Good

Providing technology and resources to empower organizations working to solve global challenges to the environment, humanitarian issues, accessibility, health, and cultural heritage.

AI for Accessibility Grants

AI for Accessibility grants support projects that use AI to empower people living with disabilities. We are looking for individuals or teams who are not only passionate about making the world more inclusive, but also firmly rooted in the communities they intend to benefit. We want to invest in ideas that are developed by or with people with disabilities.

Applications are evaluated on their scientific merit, innovative use of AI technology, and potential for scalability.

Empower your work through grants, investments of technology, and expertise. We work with partners in four important areas of focus:

• Low-cost Assistive Technology:
  • 80% of people with disabilities live in low- and middle-income countries; only 1 in 10 people have access to assistive technology. We believe that designing relevant assistive technology with and by people with disabilities in these regions will spur innovation and help create better opportunities.
• Education:
  • Restricted educational opportunities and unmet classroom accommodations can exclude students with disabilities from many paths to advanced degrees and careers. AI is advancing tools for transcription, translation, and language understanding capabilities.
• Employment:
  • The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 2-3 times higher than average and the recent shift to remote work has worsened this disability divide. Investing in inclusive datasets and tools can improve how AI technology is used in recruiting and spark inclusive economic recovery.
• Community:
  • Connections are key to maintaining mental health and relationships with family and friends. Mental health is the largest disability segment and a growing concern during the pandemic. AI is modernizing ways to better maintain wellbeing and communicate across differences.
• Home:
  • From transportation, to voice-powered interfaces, to tools that do not consider the disability experience – many aspects of daily life exclude people with disabilities. By investing in better use of inclusive data and affordable technology powered by AI, we can reimagine societal inclusion.

The Grantee Experience and Benefits

Over a 12-month period, you will be part of a vibrant community of grantees. You will receive support to accelerate and drive impact for your AI for Accessibility grant project.

• Funding: Our grants cover costs related to collecting or labelling data, developing models, or other engineering-related work.
• Azure & Tech Consulting: We provide Azure compute credits worth $10,000, $15,000, or $20,000 as well as Azure developer support and resources.
  • To estimate the monetary value of Azure computing resources you need, use the Azure calculator.
  • For example, if your plan requires 100,000 Cognitive Services Computer Vision transactions, you will need $100 per month for 12 months, totaling $1,200 in Azure credits for the one-year grant period.
• Community: You will be included in a supportive community of current grantees and alumni.
• Mentoring: We provide a designated mentor based on your grant topic to help unlock the potential of your project.
• Amplification: We give you access to a support platform to craft and share your grant project more widely.

Futures Forum on Learning: Tools Competition

The 2023-2024 Tools Competition (the “Competition”) is focused on the discovery of new tools and technologies that can address pressing challenges in education, facilitate the improvement of student outcomes, and advance Learning Engineering.

Objectives

• Catalyze learning outcomes - We support cutting edge solutions for the most pressing challenges facing learners worldwide.
• Advance learning science research - We build capacity for edtech to leverage big data to support a better understanding of learning at scale.
• Develop all innovators - We welcome individuals and teams at all phases of development - from early ideas to established platforms.
• Build the Learning Engineering community - We cultivate a strong network, driving collaboration between edtech, researchers, and educators.

Why Learning Engineering? The Tools Competition meets an urgent need to leverage cutting edge digital technology and data to support learning science research at scale.Underpinning the competition is the growing field of learning engineering, which brings together edtech, researchers, and educators to leverage big data to:

• expand what we know about learning - what works, for whom, and under what conditions.
• catalyze a cycle of continuous improvement to develop more effective interventions and drive evidence-based product innovation.

Edtech has an important role to play in contributing to research at scale. Tools generate rich data that can allow researchers to run studies and better understand the learning process.All competitors will need to detail how their tool contributes to learning engineering.Read the Tools Competition FAQs.

Background

Over the next three years, AWS is committing $40M to harness the power of the cloud to advance health equity globally. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is offering AWS Promotional Credit and technical expertise to selected institutions and companies addressing health disparities that impact underserved or underrepresented communities around the world.

The program will support applications that develop culturally responsive solutions to: 1) increase access to health services, 2) reduce disparities by addressing social determinants of health, and 3) leverage data to promote equitable and inclusive systems of care.

We have the opportunity to harness the power of health-related data in the cloud to address longstanding social and structural disparities that were amplified by the differential impact of COVID-19 on underserved populations. Cloud innovation can help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for ensuring healthy lives and promoting wellbeing by supporting more equitable, sustainable, and inclusive recovery efforts.

Addressing health inequities requires a multi-faceted approach and a variety of solutions due to its complexities. Though technology is not a silver bullet, it can be a force multiplier for organizations building innovative cloud-based solutions to remove barriers and reduce disparities in health. Examples of cloud interventions for underserved populations can include conversational artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance community engagement, enable access to integrated health and social services, and target disparities in health outcomes. Underserved or underrepresented communities can include but are not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, disability, neurodiversity, geography, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Funding Areas

We invite applications by organizations who are leveraging the cloud to reduce inequities in care and enhance health outcomes in any of the following four areas:

• Increase access to health services
  • Access to health services is essential to improving health outcomes. Digital health has the potential to be a valuable—if not critical—tool to increase access to health. Technology has the potential to let patients consult with health services practically anywhere in the world, help overcome distance barriers, and facilitate critical care in emergency situations.
• Reduce disparities by addressing social determinants of health
  • Reducing health disparities also requires addressing its underlying root causes. Research shows that non-medical drivers of health, otherwise known as social determinants of health (SDoH), are key to reducing inequities and improving health. Where people are born, grow, work, live, and age influence SDoH, which can be more important than healthcare or lifestyle choices in influencing health.
• Leverage data to promote equitable and inclusive systems of care
  • Another contributor to health disparities are gaps in health data. A global assessment showed that only 51 percent of countries include disaggregated data in their published national health statistics reports. This means the health status of diverse groups are not represented in national averages and, as a result, are invisible when decisions are made based on this data. This can lead to health systems focusing support on certain demographics and not others.
• Advance equity in diagnostics and screening
  • Access to diagnostics is an essential element of healthcare, however, much of the world has limited to no access to diagnostics. The diagnosis of easily diagnosable tracer conditions (such as diabetes and tuberculosis) however, is often difficult to access for people of low socio-economic status, youth, traditionally underserved or underrepresented populations, and those with low levels of education. Delayed diagnosis and treatment can have a profound impact on the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities. In tandem with health system strengthening and other coordinated public health efforts, diagnostic technology has the power to improve global health outcomes by democratizing access to health and healthcare, and advancing health equity.

Funding Request

The maximum request per application should not exceed $250,000 in AWS Promotional Credit. We will consider applications that exceed this on a case-by-case basis, and such applications must be accompanied by a justification for the additional request.  

NOTE: Letters of Interest may be submitted at any time throughout the year; however, the recommended deadline to submit your LOI to meet our grant cycles is March 10th or September 10th.

Background

For over 70 years, the Calvin K. Kazanjian Economics Foundation, Inc. has supported efforts to raise the nation’s level of economic literacy. Working with and funding a variety of institutions the Foundation has projects ranging from the development of National curriculum guides and standards for the schools in economics, to more focused materials for teaching economics and personal finance at all grade levels and through a variety of disciplines. The Foundation has taken a leadership role in applying new technologies to economics education including the development of a nationally broadcast educational film series for schools and colleges in the 1950s-1980s, and computer assisted instruction in the 1990s. The Foundation has recently underwritten the development of on-line games and activities for students.

With the knowledge that even the best materials will remain unused unless the gatekeepers of the classroom feel knowledgeable and comfortable with them, the Kazanjian Foundation has invested heavily in teacher education. As an initial and longtime supporter of the Developmental Economics Education Program the Foundation helped build a network of school districts committed to initiating and enhancing economics and personal finance instruction. This work and other efforts of the Foundation helped make economics and personal finance instruction a required part of the school curriculum in 38 states.

The Kazanjian Foundation has not limited its support to only traditional K-12 classrooms. Working with the American Economic Association and other professional organizations the Foundation has helped improve economics instruction in the college classroom. The Foundation has also underwritten the development of various instruments to measure economic and personal finance knowledge and supported research to determine the most effective way to teach economics.

Understanding that schools and colleges are not the only conveyance for increasing economic literacy, the Kazanjian Foundation has invested in programs to help clergy of all denominations convey basic economic concepts to their congregations. The Foundation has also supported efforts to increase economic knowledge among social workers and their colleagues in the hopes that they in turn can improve the basic personal finance skills of those they serve.

Though pleased with the success of its efforts in economic and personal finance education to date, the Foundation is none-the-less determined to further its mission set by Calvin K. Kazanjian, the founder and first president of Peter Paul Almond Joy.

Funding Interest

Foundation’s current funding interest includes but not limited to:

• The delivery of economic education to youth in non-school settings
• Behavioral economics with a focus on environmental issues
• Economic education initiatives to under-served communities in the local states
• On-line competitions
• Entrepreneurship education
• Marketing capabilities to serve more population in economic education
• Programs to generate more excitement for economic and financial education
• Economic education programs in a recently mandated state

Supporting Your Communities

As part of its ongoing commitment to rural communities across the country, FRS offers aid for communities served by NTCA members through its annual Community Grants Program. These grants are designed to provide support to a variety of local efforts to build and sustain a high quality of life in rural America.

Grant Categories

Business and Economic Development

Devise a plan to turn your community into a global phenomenon by growing small or existing businesses, developing new ones and implementing a job creation program that attracts key talent from your community or from skilled individuals interested in relocating to small town America.

Community Development

Develop an outreach program that helps to promote advancing technology skills of your community members, incorporates innovation into learning, raises the visibility of your community’s talent and artistry, and places your town on everyone’s bucket list as the place to visit.

Education

Support advances in education by helping your schools get technology (computers, smart boards, etc.) in the classroom, build resources for curriculum development, strengthen extracurricular activities and programs, and promote distance learning programs.

Telecommunications Applications

Show how you plan to turn your community into a technological powerhouse by promoting the implementation and use of broadband-enabled applications for telehealth, education, government services, safety and security, and efficient energy distribution and use.